I spent the morning getting caught up on some stuff I'd been slacking on (yes, including the blog), and then around noon-thirty Nathan dropped me off down at the convention center for Stumptown, where I met up with my Katie, and good times were had by all. One of the things I specifically wanted to do was sit in on a panel on digital painting, and thus we did so. Which brings us to this:
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| Smudge Tooled |
No, it is not particularly exciting. But what it is, is me putting into use one of the things I learned during the panel. Well not so much "learned" as "was reminded of". See, I have this bad habit of getting into a rut with what I do with how I color; I know what works and I stick to it. Don't get me wrong- I like my vaguely-cel-shaded-style, but sometimes I forget that I don't have to work that way. Hence I busted out a smudgy sphere.
Anyway, we eventually wandered back across the river and into the rock gym, where I pushed the hell out of myself and tried a 5.10+ (couldn't solve it without cheating- yet) which schooled me on the importance of keeping your core tight. But what was super the most exciting was that I tried a 5.8 overhang (ie, on a wall angled more than 90 degrees) called Starfall. Now, what you need to understand is that I'd done Starfall before. A couple of times, actually. Failed it a couple of times, too. Solving that route had involved a lot of swearing and brute strength, but I hadn't tried it since I started the technique clinic, and I wanted to see if I'd actually made any improvement in my climbing.
Holy stars, have I ever.
I'm not saying it was "easy", but it felt good. I didn't feel like I was fighting the wall, I felt like my body was doing what it was supposed to be doing, and that I was actually flowing instead of muscling; I didn't completely deplete my strength getting to the top. It was a fabulous feeling, and I was super, super triumphant- and super glad Katie was there to prove I wasn't making it up.
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